quote:

We need to stop all the outrageous spending being done by the ... government

This is the entire issue, as far as I'm concerned.

Cut cut cut. Slash slash slash.

We have a spending problem. The rest will work itself out once that's solved.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
The 14%, however, are people who have contributed less or nothing, and will draw benefits far longer than a retiree. It seems like the impact of disability recipients on the SS fund is far greater because they will draw from it for way longer than a senior. If the administration is trying to increase the number of younger people who qualify for disability, then it could increase that 14% to a much higher number very quickly.

I don't have so much of a problem with those who are truly disabled due to no fault of their own. However, I have an ex-BIL who chose to keep taking drugs and commit crimes to support it. He eventually got on disability in his mid 30s because all the meth gave him bipolar disorder. He will now draw a check every month for the next 50 years. He even got that check while he was in county lockup for 364 days straight after exposing his genitalia to an old lady. To me that's not somebody who should qualify for disability.

There is no "fund". Social Security is a current tax to pay current benefits, with all excess tax receipts going to the general Treasury for use elsewhere. Always has been, and always will be until the law is changed.

Sure, they pretend to "loan" the excess receipts to the Treasury and replace them with Soc Sec specific Treasury bonds. But that is just smoke and mirrors, because when current benefits are greater than current receipts, the shortfall will have to be filled by current taxes or borrowing to "pay back" the debt just in time to make the benefit payments.

The more recipients of any kind, the greater the burden on the taxpayers, so yes adding more disabled increases the burden on those of us that work for a living. With regard to your BIL meth does not cause bipolar disorder, it is an organic disorder that likely has a genetic component. Unfortunately, in some areas of mental health bipolar has become the diagnosis of choice because it guaranties insurance reimbursement for treatment and prescriptions, and generally avoids challenges by insurance providers.

With regard to retirees, 65 was set in the 1930's based on the age of retirement in Prussia under Otto Von Bismarck in the 1870's. In the 1930's the average life expectancy for all Americans was less than 65, so it's easy to create a system where most people never get old enough to receive benefits. The age of benefit eligibility should have been indexed to life expectancy, but it wasn't and now we have seniors living 20 years or more on benefits which was not the intent.

IIRC distributions from tax deferred retirement plans were aways taxed as ordinary income. I hadn't heard that a specific increase to the tax rate on distributions was part of his plan. If true someone should be hammering the Democritters on that.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

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Going back to the semi-original subject, any attempt to go after retirement savings for tax revenue would start a political thermonuclear war. Going after Social Security would be hard enough. Going after peoples retirement savings would start an armed conflict. The politicritters know this, and likely don't have the stomach to try.

^^^^^^^^^
RMDs from retirment plans are being taxed already. Under the Biden proposal the rate will be increased.